Chapter Two
1045 Words
Aria moved through the forest just as usual—quickly, quietly, and untamed. But something was not entirely appropriate. First was something in her movements. This unfamiliar tingly sensation in muscles, this fatigue over her body even following an evening's repose.
She ignored this supposing this was just stress caused by living alone.
But as each passing day passed by, body changes in her grew undeniable.
Her appetite was altered in ways she couldn't grasp.
Prey that used to get her revved now was smelling too pungent, too crimson. And she was hungry in exchange for odd things—berries, raw fish, damp ground was making her drooling. It was dizzying. Her body was turning against her in ways she was not used to.
Then came dizziness. It came suddenly, this whirling around that saw her clinging to whatever tree was nearest in an attempt to balance herself. Her heartbeat was pounding in her chest, breathing short and jagged, vision blurry. It was an attack—something was not working inside.
But the most terrible was nausea.
It hit her in the morning while she was taking water in a cold pure stream. When water was put to her tongue, her stomach writhed over in spasm, and she jerked forward to vomit. So intense was the spasm that she was gasping before she was down upon her knees.
Something was not right with her.
She wasn’t sick—werewolves weren’t sick this way. Their bodies repaired quickly, shooed infection before infection was in a position to take over. But this was something completely different.
Panic started to creep in because her mind ran through everything that was possibly ill about her. Was she poisoned? Was she cursed?
Or…
The thought came to her in an unwelcome way, cold as a snake.
No. It was not. It couldn't have been.
Her hands shook while she put them over her stomach, feeling the slightest protruding form underneath her hands. She had not been pregnant before—she had not dreamt about getting pregnant. But now each passing day was changing her body beyond denial.
And then came the pang
At first, dullness only, just discomfort that she paid no attention to. But over the passing days, acute, piercing. It was not usual. Her wolf, that part of herself supposed to be tough, was rejecting whatever was inside her.
She felt it in her depths—her body spurning the pregnancy. Her werewolf half was spurning it in turn, regarding it as an invading foe.
Her instincts told her to get rid of it.
One night, in an unacceptable agony, came to her epiphany.
She crouched in the centre of the forest, gasping brutally, shuddering in every inch of her body. Her claws emerged forward extended, piercing and fatal.
She had no pack to work with, no healer to guide her. No guidance was received by her from anyone, no aid to be gained.
She was alone.
And she was not able to keep this inside her anymore.
With a shuddering gasp, she placed claws to her stomach. Her heartbeat pounded in her ear as she prepared to attack.
But the moment the sharp tips touched her skin, something stopped her.
A force—something unseen, something immense—pushed in response.
Her claws weren't piercing through her.
She tried to push again, straining this time with greater difficulty, gasping in desperate breaths. But something appeared to have put an imaginary wall over her belly to prevent life from coming through.
Her wolf half was swearing in anger, yet something inside her was something entirely different.
Fear.
And something else
Something she couldn't yet name.
She collapsed to the ground, her body wracked with shudders as tears streamed down to scorch her eyes. Never before had she cried.
Not like this particular moment.
She had lived to survive, to fight to be free. But this was something she couldn't escape.
She was pregnant.
And no amount of denial she attempted to indulge in, no amount of struggle she attempted to present—she couldn’t.
Her body has done this to her.
She was to adopt this child and with no support
And she was not informed that this was to be done to her.
Aria lay upon the ground in the forest floor for an interminable amount of time, her body shuddering with exhaustion, fear, and something she was not about to call by name.
Cool evening air danced across her sweaty body, while above her the leaves murmured in hushed tones saying things she dared not listen to.
She was pinned.
Her entire life was about controlling—her survival, her instincts, her destiny.
But now, her body was turning against her, launching her headfirst into something she neither needed nor was yet ready to withstand.
She curled claws in towards the ground, retracting in revulsion as exasperation gave way to resignation.
The shield around her womb was not something she formed.
It was primal, beyond her ability to understand. Something beyond her power.
She wasn’t pregnant with an ordinary child
She was carrying something humongous.
Her breath hitched at the thought.
A half-human, half-wolf kid. something that her own wouldn't talk about, something repulsive.
Werewolf pregnancies only happened irregularly, and this—this was just barely hanging in there.
Aria pressed her hand to her stomach where she felt the heat in her hand.
She had attempted to reject it, to rend it off, but refused to be erased
Was this predestined
A cruel turn in life
Or something better
She didn’t suspect something and she was not informed about everything.
But for the first time in life, she was forced to face whatever was to be placed before her.
And deep inside herself, where her werewolf rested fitfully in repose, she felt something stir that she was not expecting.
Not fear.
Not anger.
But the faintest touch of embrace.
Aria exhaled shudderingly while her hands remainingspained against her stomach.
The fight was over—at least temporarily.
She would have to live this life, liked it or not. It is not something to be done. The future was in uncertainty, but this was true: she was no longer among predators alone.
She was something unique.
- Writer
